Target: Prague's Jews

Israelinsider: Prague under an unseen, unexplained, 'unprecedented' threat

On the sun-dappled streets of Prague's Jewish Quarter, undercover officers mingle with the crowds, and police commandos clad in body armor and ammunition belts size up tourists with a steely stare.

It has been like this since Sept. 23, when the capital went on high alert after counterterrorism officials received foreign intelligence warning of a clear and present danger: a plot, a prominent Czech newspaper reported, that might have involved abducting and killing dozens of Jews.

Authorities characterize the threat as "unprecedented." But they are not elaborating.

"We got from our partners abroad very serious information. For the first time, we had concrete information from a very trustworthy source pointing to an imminent threat," Jan Subert, chief spokesman for the counterintelligence agency BIS, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Subert would not specify the target, though he said the intelligence clearly indicated not only what it was, but "the way the attack would be carried out."

"At this moment, I can say the threat is still here," he added.

Although Subert said Jewish interests were at risk, he would neither confirm nor deny a report in the influential daily Mlada Fronta Dnes that cited unidentified intelligence sources as saying Islamic militants planned to abduct worshippers in one of Prague's six synagogues late last month on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, barricade themselves inside and make vague demands before blowing up the temple, killing everyone inside.

Due to time constraints, we now move to further action.

Subert, the BIS spokesman, ticks off a long list of reasons why the Czech Republic -- a stalwart ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism -- is a potential target.

The country, a fledgling member of NATO and the European Union, has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In July, U.S. officials finished surveying possible locations for a missile defense base. Prague also hosts the headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded broadcaster that beams programming to the Arab world.

In 1998, Subert disclosed, Czech authorities thwarted a plot to attack the Radio Free Europe building after intercepting a message from Baghdad to an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague. The message indicated Iraq was intent on stopping broadcasts to Iraq and contained details of how the attack would be carried out, he told the AP.